IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME BY ALEX BARNETT

People always ask me to speak Greek. It’s the first question I get when people learn I went to Greek school for twelve years and spend every other summer there. But I have never lived alone in Greece or ever travelled there by myself. I have my extremely fluent mother by my side on all occasions, except for this past summer, and let me tell you I don’t know Greek nearly as well as I ever thought. Walking around Athens alone trying to use my Gringlish (Greek English as my uncles call it) was an absolute mess.

I would fail at every corner, (literally, I actually got lost about 50 times turning at the wrong corner), but after about a week and a half I realized how amazing these failures actually were for me. These failures allowed me to become creative, find different ways to maneuver my way through a country which I thought I had already known all about. I learned more Greek than I would ever have imagined I could have.

By being alone and failing at something I am usually so good at, I was able to talk to hundreds of people, pick up amazing language skills and not to mention improve my Greek to a point that’s better than my mothers.

Creativity is about failing and expanding as a person, my failures in a country I am so familiar with allowed me to expand as a person. Creativity should not be a fear, even in situations where you think you won’t need it.

Embrace it, I promise it will get you where you’re going a lot faster. Or at least maybe just on the right train instead of ending up in Sparta.